Step by step

How to craft a podcast

Walkley Award-winning journalist Rachael Brown knows a thing or two about telling a good story. Her true-crime podcast Trace reviews the 38-year-old cold case of Maria James, who was murdered in a back room of her Melbourne bookshop.

Words by Rachael Brown 

FIND YOUR INSPIRATION 

Sometimes, as a journalist, you choose stories. Sometimes they choose you. I didn’t create Trace because I’m a true crime fiend, rather, the many layers of this case and the people caught in its wake touched me. I felt a podcast would be the most respectful medium to explore this case forensically and compassionately and to give a powerful voice to those involved.  I’d read a Guardian article arguing that Serial would never be possible in Australia because of restricted access to court documents and police records. Around the same time, a colleague and best mate told me an electrician had given a police statement claiming he’d seen a priest covered in blood near the Maria James murder scene. The fact that police had eliminated this priest as a suspect in 2015, but refused to say why, bugged me. These two elements must have been marinating in my mind because one day in February 2016 I woke at 4am with the idea of reviewing this cold case through an interactive podcast. I hoped the police might appreciate an extra pair of hands and thought the James family would welcome any way to revive their mum’s case. I was acutely aware of the ‘true crime as entertainment’ slippery slope, so my early caveat was getting the blessing of both Maria James’ two sons, and former detective Ron Iddles – this case was his first homicide investigation. `with intonat ion, in a much more con- fined space. The producers helped me to tell the story, not read it, by encouraging me to turn my script face down and just explain what was important about each upcoming section. 

PUBLISH 

Trace launched on 17 June 2017, on the 37th anniversary of Maria James' death. The first four episodes were released in quick succession, one a week, and Trace quickly became the ABC's most popular podcast. It’d be crass to celebrate strong statistics for such a tragic story, but the figure I celebrate is 300 – the number of emails that quickly flooded into Trace’s account, with new leads. This helped Trace win the 2017 Walkley Award for Innovation. Episode five dropped in September 2017, followed by Episode Six in June this year. More updates will come once the coroner decides whether to reopen the inquest and once Victoria Police retests Maria James’ clothing for a new DNA sample of her killer. If you’d like to read more about interviewing vulnerable and marginalised people, as well as survivors of abuse and trauma, I urge you to read this VCOSS Piece: http://vcoss.org.au/blog/nev